I said in the first part of this two part blog post:
…I know that my boat will float nicely down the river of the week without hitting any rocks, won’t have to negotiate any difficult turns, the engine will take care of itself, that the banks of the river are high and safe and will keep my boat in the middle of the stream, and that the water is clean and wonderful….
This is incredibly important for us and I wanted to expand on this idea a bit. As I pointed out, we are already overwhelmed by paperwork that is meant to justify what we are doing in our classrooms, which takes, for some of us, over 50% of our planning time right there. But, more importantly, our sense of peacefulness leaves us when we are in the mindset of “trying to get them to learn something” instead of letting the “art of conversation” just take over and guide our days.
It’s crazy to “try to get those kids to learn something”. I think that Krashen has shown that we can’t do that, and that language teachers who try that will eventually burn out as teachers. Allowing things to happen naturally in the classroom, as opposed to “making things happen”, is the way to go.
Just let the CI boat float down the river. If you’re not in a script, see where the PQA goes. If you are in a script, follow it sentence by sentence but don’t force it. Let things happen. Release some of the control and watch magic happen. Listen to your students.
And don’t blame yourself if you can’t do it. Aren’t we done with that? The fact is that we all feel that way, but one thing I have noticed in my own experience is that, just by trying every day for all these years, a flower has grown, and it is beautiful, so beautiful that I go to work with confidence every day. I don’t bring an agenda – I let things take care of themselves.
You will not notice the growth of your own flower, as it sits there on the windowsill of your classroom, not dying. Things that are great happen without our noticing it. Children grow into adults and we don’t notice the changes that occur in them but they happen anyway. So much of what is beautiful in this world happens unnoticed. Time is our biggest friend in this work we are doing. You will get so better at this! But you won’t notice it happening.
I think that this issue of control is what is strangling so many of us right now. Administrators are trying to control us, we are trying to control our students, it’s all madness. With the weekly schedule and the boat I now float around in, I can just enjoy my week. Isn’t it about time that we tried something like that? We have the perfect medium for delivery of fluid, unforced language instruction. Let’s use it.
Related:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2010/09/17/our-part-is-simply-to-relax/
The Problem with CI
Jeffrey Sachs was asked what the difference between people in Norway and in the U.S. was. He responded that people in Norway are happy and
